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Our History

Our History

Our company is the product of decades of experience and expertise.

Choose a date from our timeline.

George Wimpey

Taylor Woodrow

Taylor Wimpey

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1880

George Wimpey established a stone working business in Hammersmith. The photograph shows the original office in The Grove yard. Soon George Wimpey and Company was carrying out major building and road projects throughout London.

1908

King Edward VII opens the White City Stadium which was built by George Wimpey. The 80,000-seater stadium hosted most of the events for the 1908 Olympic Games and the Franco-British Exhibition. By now the family business had become a well-regarded contractor expanding from West London.

1919

Godfrey Way Mitchell (later Sir Godfrey Mitchell) bought the company from the Wimpey family and renamed it George Wimpey & Co Ltd.

1921

Frank Taylor (later Lord Taylor of Hadfield) borrowed money to build two houses in Blackpool when he was 16. His uncle Jack Woodrow lent his name to the company.

1930

Frank Taylor moved to London. Before the outbreak of the Second World War the company was building more than 1,000 homes a year

1934

George Wimpey was first listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company built 1,370 homes in this year.

1937

Taylor Woodrow Construction was formed. The company focused on contracts relating to the war effort, such as building airfields and factories. The photograph shows the familiar figure of Winston Churchill visiting the Mulberry Harbour construction site.

1946

Construction of London Airport, now called Heathrow Airport, finished. George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow worked on the project

1953

George Wimpey began building homes for private sale again. Since the end of the Second World War the company had been building homes for local authorities and by the 1950s was building 18,000 local authority homes a year.

1956

Queen Elizabeth II officially opened Calder Hall, the world's first nuclear power station able to generate electricity in commercial quantities. Taylor Woodrow Construction had been the civil engineering contractor for the project.

1956

The Blackwood Hodge offices and showrooms in Toronto were finished in this year. This was the company's first major project in Canada.

1970

Taylor Woodrow started to build St Katherine's Dock, one of the most ambitious private urban developments ever undertaken in London. The Queen visited the development in 1974.

1972

George Wimpey built about 12,500 private sale homes. This was three times as many as its nearest competitor. George Wimpey became the largest home builder in the country, selling 106,440 homes during the 1970s.

1974

Frank Taylor received a knighthood in March 1974. Seen here outside Buckingham Palace with his wife and daughter.

1984

George Wimpey bought Morrison Homes in the United States. It was based in San Francisco but expanded its operations into cities across the country, including Orlando, Pheonix and Houston.

1994

The Channel Tunnel was finished. Taylor Woodrow Construction had been the civil engineering contractor.

1994

The Channel Tunnel was finished. George Wimpey had been a founder member of the project consortium.

1995

George Wimpey swapped its construction and minerals businesses for McLean Homes, the home building business of Tarmac Plc

1996

Morrison Homes, along with 4 other home builders, began to build Celebration. Walt Disney wanted to build a better place for families to live and designed Celebration to be an innovative combination of architecture, education, health and technology. the development occupies 4,900 acres of former swampland in Florida, near Disneyworld.

1999

Taylor Woodrow began building Greenwich Millennium Village, the first of the government's sustainable millennium communities.

2001

Taylor Woodrow bought the Bryant Group. The name was kept and homes were sold as 'Bryant Homes by Taylor Woodrow'.

2001

George Wimpey bought McAlpine Homes. McAlpine Homes and McLean Homes were integrated with George Wimpey into a single home building business in the UK. In the US Richardson Homes was bought and integrated into Morrison Homes.

2003

Taylor Woodrow bought Wilson Connolly. At the time this was the largest acquisition within the home building industry. It gave the company a greater presence in the north of England.

2003

George Wimpey began building Staiths in Gateshead. The development was designed in collaboration with Wayne and Gerardine Hemmingway. The homes use a variety of colourful external materials and design features and are grouped around communal 'pocket parks'.

2005

Highgate in Durham is awarded the Building for Life Gold Standard.

Taylor Wimpey

2007

George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow merge to form Taylor Wimpey. At the time the combined output of both companies was over 20,000 homes a year.

2008

Taylor Woodrow Construction is sold to Vinci, leaving Taylor Wimpey to focus on home building.

2009

The partnership between the Lawley Village Developer Group (we are one of three developers in this consortium) and Birse Civils, for the delivery of the primary infrastructure works, was given a Gold Award by the Considerate Constructors Scheme for the second year in a row.

2011

We provided full funding for the sports centre at Cambourne, which opened in this year. Also in October planning consent was granted for the final phase of the Cambourne development (950 new homes). We began building this last phase in July 2012.

Taylor Wimpey exits North America by selling Taylor Morrison in the US and Monarch in Canada

2012

For the first time Taylor Wimpey was ranked as a five-star builder by the Home Builders Federation using their independent National New Homes Survey. We maintained our five-star ranking in 2013.

Taylor Wimpey, and partner L&Q, were selected by the London Legacy Development Corporation to build Chobham Manor the first of five residential developments on the site of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

2013

Taylor Wimpey gained membership of the Home and Communities Agency's second Developer Partner Panel and the Greater London Authority's London Development Panel. These panels give public sector organisations a shortlist of 'pre-qualified' developers to make delivery of new homes on public land more efficient.

The Sandbrook View showhome opened in February. This was the first development we successfully tendered for as a member of the original Developer Partner Panel. Rochdale Development Agency selected us as preferred developer in 2011.